The Great Unexpected (Paperback)

Fall '12 Kids List

“Naomi and Lizzie, two orphaned girls, live in the small, peculiar town of Blackbeard Tree. One day, a boy, Finn, falls from a tree and lands right on top of the girls, starting a chain of fantastical and wondrous events that will change Naomi and Lizzie's lives forever. Fun, precocious, and with a bit of the mysterious thrown in, The Great Unexpected will delight and surprise.”
— Meaghan Beasley, Island Bookstore, Duck, NC

Description

From Newbery Medal winner and bestselling author Sharon Creech comes a grand, sweeping yarn that is a celebration of the great and unexpected gifts of love, friendship, and forgiveness. With a starred review from KirkusReviews calling it an "enchanting tale to treasure," The Great Unexpected captures the heart and the imagination.

Humorous and heartfelt, this is a story of pairs--of young Naomi and Lizzie, both orphans in present-day Blackbird Tree, USA, and of Sybil and Nula, grown-up sisters from faraway Rook's Orchard, Ireland, who have become estranged.

Young Naomi Deane is brimming with curiosity and her best friend, Lizzie Scatterding, could talk the ears off a cornfield. Naomi has a knack for being around when trouble happens. She knows all the peculiar people in town--like Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins. But then, one day, a boy drops out of a tree. Just like that. A strangely charming Finn boy. And then the Dingle Dangle man appears, asking all kinds of questions. Curious surprises are revealed--three locked trunks, a pair of rooks, a crooked bridge, and that boy--and soon Naomi and Lizzie find their lives changed forever.

As two worlds are woven together, Creech reveals that hearts can be mended and that there is indeed a gossamer thread that connects us all.